The Florida Times-Union's military reporter, Joe Daraskevich, posted a video on Wednesday on his Twitter showing just HMS Queen Elizabeth (280m long) next to the slightly smaller USS Iwo Jima (257m):

Despite it being the biggest military ship in Mayport, HMS Queen Elizabeth is still topped by the largest US Navy carriers. USS Gerald R. Ford and USS George H.W. Bush are 337m and 332m long respectively.

Unlike its US counterparts, which have flat flight decks, HMS Queen Elizabeth has a "ski jump" ramp at one end, which will give the planes a little extra height when taking off.

Here's a video of F-35s practicing on a ground-based replica of the ski jump:

Local TV station WJXT News said the ship would be in Mayport for a couple of days before heading north to Maryland. That base is on the Chesapeake Bay – around 62 miles south of Washington, D.C.

Here's the Twitter post from their arrival in Mayport:

As it was arriving the band played a rendition of the British national anthem "God Save the Queen."

The deployment to the US is significant because it will mark the first fighter jet landing on a British aircraft carrier in eight years, since the decommissioning of HMS Ark Royal.

The F-35B jets will be flown from Naval Air Station Patuxent River by four pilots from the Integrated Test Force, a unit that includes British and American pilots.

In a statement, HMS Queen Elizabeth's captain, Jerry Kyd, said: "Crossing a major ocean with 1.500 sailors, aircrew and Marines embarked and the anticipation of the first F-35B Lightning landing on the deck in September is very exciting for us all... this deployment demonstrates the astonishing collaborative effort that will enable the new F-35B jets to fly routinely from our Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers."

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.